


What I Must Be

by cranberryloops (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Mention of Death, Multi, breaking the sex mold, mentions of cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cranberryloops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows they're a little fucked up. John Watson just didn't realise just how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Must Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musamihi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/gifts).



> Written to Musamihi's prompt: Someone insists on staying very firmly within his/her heteronormative gender role during sexual interactions, and is extremely uncomfortable having that role compromised or questioned. At first, his/her partner doesn't really mind (or maybe just doesn't realize what's happening), but after a while it becomes an issue - either because the partner wants to branch out into activities that would run against the grain of that gender role, or because the partner begins to find it insulting or burdensome, or whatever you like.
> 
> I hope this fic answers at least some of the challenges you set out in the prompt. 
> 
> And beta duties go to the wonderful daichik, any remaining mistakes are my own.

It's that lazy morning sunlight and the soft sound of the shower running that wakes Sherlock. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, and stares at the ceiling in attempt to find a suitable retaliation to John waking him up so early.

The shower stops running, and the culprit himself walks into the room a few seconds later. Despite himself, Sherlock turns his head to look.

John's shoulders and chest are damp and little drop of water run from his hair down his face, the towel hanging around his waist is a bare token of modesty, and suddenly Sherlock has a different plan of attack all together.

 

_When he's seven Sherlock locks his private tutor in the music room and snicks into the stables in order to catch a mouse for Wimund, his pet snake, despite Mummy's scorn at the idea. He has an amazing plan which involves an elaborate trap of his own devising and some cheese he nicked from the pantry. This is going to be spectacular, he thinks._

_He doesn't mean to catch Mycroft naked with one of the maid, he really doesn't. And it's Mycroft's fault anyway, having intercourse in the dirty stables, so Sherlock doesn't even know why Mycroft is angry at him. Sherlock knows all about intercourse. You're supposed to do it in a bed, after marriage, unless you're a pirate and then you're allowed to have intercourse in your private cabin, with an unmarried woman as long as she is a virgin. Mycroft is not a pirate, therefore Mycroft is obviously having intercourse wrong._

_Sherlock runs back to the house as fast as he can, opening the door to the music room with a shout._

_"Mr. Clark!"_

_"Yes, Sherlock?" Mr. Clark asks calmly._

_"I have a question!" Sherlock shouts breathlessly, he loves questions which he already knows the right answer to. "Can you have prenuptial intercourse not in your bed if it's with a maid?"_

 

"You're awake," John smiles as his eyes drift leisurely over the white sheet covering Sherlock's body.

"Yes," Sherlock drawls, grimacing, and John can't help but laugh at the petulant expression.

"Maybe you should get up then," he suggests, cocking his head. And the childish stubbornness in Sherlock's features only deepens. He looks so unattractive that way and still John years to touch.  

Whatever emotion John's face is betraying, something in that moment makes Sherlock soften.

"No," he smirks, and stretches, running his hands over the pillows and down under the sheet, meeting John's eyes as his stare travels up Sherlock's chest.

_John doesn't remember ever seeing his parents kiss, but he knows they must've, because there's the picture. Mum hides it in a box in her closet, but John had seen it when she took the box out to show him his first lock of hair on his birthday._

_"Look, Johnny," She said sounding sad. "This was taken when I was pregnant with you."_

_In the picture his mum is holding a baby Harriet and his dad has his arm around her and they're kissing on the lips. John thought they looked happy in the picture._

_Sitting in the corridor, peeping into his parents' bedroom through the crack in the door, he doesn't understand how people can be happy and then turn sad or angry._

_"Don't you dare turn your back on me!" his dad is shouting, holding his mum by her arm._

_"James, he didn't mean to." John can hear she's crying, he recognizes the tone too well, but he can't see her face._

_"No. I'm done feeling disrespected in my own home." John dad's face is red, and his eyes look weird, but he doesn't look funny at all._

_The slap is loud, scary and worse than anything John's ever seen. Worse than their cat dying. John only manages to see his mum fall on the bed and his dad advancing at her before breathlessly running to his room._

_He hides his head under the pillow and wishes he could stop existing, that there would be no John and then his mum, and his dad, and Harriet could be happy again. Just the three of them, like in the picture._

"Maybe you should join me instead," Sherlock suggests. "I do, after all, deserve an award for having a full night's sleep," his mouth turns up in a soft smile that matches the softness of John's freshly washed skin.

"Just like the doctor ordered," he says and John's face pinches in that way that means Sherlock's said something right.

_Sherlock stares at Samuel's blood, red and rich, the blade cutting through skin expertly, creating a shallow red cut. It might be the best thing Sherlock has ever seen; Samuel's blood dripping sluggishly from the cut. He wants to taste, lick the drops and press his lips against the cut._

_"Do you enjoy it?" He asks. "The pain itself."_

_Samuel's hand stops at the beginning of a new cut and his eyes move up to focus on Sherlock. "You don't talk, Holmes," he reminds him and Sherlock nods._

_Samuel was the first interesting person Sherlock met at school. He was a newbie, which made him as much a social outcast with the other boys as Sherlock himself was. He was quiet, but polite, ignorant as the rest of their classmates and kept biting his lower lip in the most peculiar way. And he always snuck back to the dormitory on Sundays._

_Sherlock needed to know why._

_When he found out he wasn't disappointed like any other time he found out what he's been researching. No, Samuel as a subject only grew more fascinating when Sherlock realized he was enthralled, drawn to it._

_They made an agreement - Sherlock won't tell anybody and in return he gets to watch._

_A new cut. Samuel drowns the blade slowly, cutting another parallel line under the left side of his ribs. He bleeds beautifully, Sherlock thinks._

_After someone else notices and Samuel is sent away, Sherlock steals a swiss knife and tries to figure out if he can get the same rush on his own. The results, to say the least, are disappointing._

"Well, it is Sunday," John complies and sits on the bed next to Sherlock, who wastes no time and lays a heavy palm on John' s thigh, just below the towel, as if testing how high John will let him touch him.

John leans down, holds the weight of his torso with a hand beside Sherlock's head. Sherlock's pupils are wide and dark, he looks at John with expectation and satisfaction. As if he just won an argument.  

"Morning," John whispers before pressing his lips against Sherlock's.

 

_John and Sharon spend each afternoon locked  in her bedroom, snogging for hours to the sounds of "Grateful Dead" on the narrow bed until Sharon's mom gets home. Then they do their homework together and usually John stays for dinner, making small talk with Sharon's dad and helping to wash the dishes._

_John likes her. She's kind and sweet, and she feels nice pressed against him. She was his first and he was hers and it seems important. He thinks he might even love her._

_"John, what are we going to do next year?" Sharon asks him, sighing, one afternoon. John continues the trail of kisses down her throat, his fingers splayed on the bare warm skin of her back._

_She giggles and he lifts his head._

_"I'm going to King's," he tells her._

_"I know," Sharon blushes. "Of course you are, but my mum thinks- I mean, I talked to my mum, and we both think," she bites her lip and John can feel his heart beating wildly. "I don't care about waiting, but I need to know there's something for me to wait for."_

_"I-" John gulps._

_It's quiet. They lie quietly, John almost covering her body with his, not saying a word, the music still playing softly in the background._

_John detangles himself from Sharon, feeling unbearably guilty, gets up from the bed. He doesn't know how he missed something this big._

_"I'm sorry," John says. He feels like a dick._

_Sharon doesn't cry, or yell, or say anything to him for the rest of the year._

John's kiss is like a gush of wind, soft and cold, clean and sweet. Sherlock opens his mouth and moans when John kisses him thoroughly, presses Sherlock deeper into the bed.

Sherlock moves his hands restlessly over the body pressing against him, palms warming John's skin and nails scratching taunt muscles, John bites a series of teeth marks up his jaw in retaliation and Sherlock sighs.

John is a familiar and welcome weight above him, soft and bright in his uncomplicated fashion.

_Sebastian is coming down the stairs for breakfast, stupid and obvious. Sherlock can see everything._

_The shirt collar buttoned up, Sebastian a little flushed, maybe hot. He has mud on the soles of his shoes. He's been out that night. He usually looks at the food table, today he looks left. At the windows? No. At teachers table? No. He averts his eyes, trying not to be obvious. The girls' tables' then. Three girls notice him coming down, one smiles at him and he doesn't notice. Not her. The other two turn away quickly. One of them has her hair pulled back, the other doesn't, tugging a blond lock behind her ear. She has a ring on her hand. Gift? Engagement? Inconclusive. The girl with the ponytail has a tear in her stocking, looks like it caught on something. Both their shoes are clean._

_The one with the ring looks up again, biting her lower lip. Ah._

_Sebastian sits across him, smiling._

_Sherlock can imagine the two of them in her room. Sebastian's hands cupping her breasts, kissing her mouth, kissing down her throat, kissing skin and more skin, her breasts, and her nipples until it's no longer enough and he pushes into her and she moans at the pain._

_"Really?" Sherlock says, eyes narrowing in contempt at Sebastian. "Jenny Steinley?"_

_The shockingly pleasant image still playing in his head, Sebastian desperately pushing in so hard Jenny shouts, mouth open and eyes screwed shut._

_It's frustrating, this craving that burns under Sherlock's skin, and it's devastating not being able to have, to take._

_He doesn't want what Sebastian has, he thinks, doesn't want anybody touching him. Can't help the revulsion that comes with having someone else's skin press against his; clammy, and foreign. Can't stand the idea of other people's saliva inside his mouth or on his skin._

_He doesn't want that. But he does want more than his hand, more than this constant thinking about other people together._

_He wants it to be easy, uncomplicated._

_"How did you know this time?" Sebastian laughs and Sherlock absolutely detests him._

 

John pushes his pelvis against Sherlock's stomach a little harder and breathes in the smell of clean sheets and Sherlock's skin.

Sherlock's fingers comb through his wet hair and John almost shivers at the touch.

"What do you want to do?" He asks before nipping at Sherlock's lips, waiting for the kiss that should follow.

 

_John misses London. He misses the nights out with mates, he misses the girls, and he missed cramming for exams when hung over. He misses being naïve. But he gets by. John Watson's Afghanistan turns out to be. Surprising._

_It's not the amount of sex he's managing to have, or even the fact he seems to prefer to fuck men suddenly, or even the way he likes it all, sand, sweat and blood,  a bit too much. The biggest surprise about Afghanistan is Harry turns out to be the subject of his pick-up lines._

_He knows the boys who seek him out usually look for an older brother figure. And it's easy to be that for them; unassuming Captain Watson who just might be the one to patch them up when they are shot, but that's at the field and in his small camp office he's just a comforting presence._

_The conversation always turns to home, and with those boys, who smile and chat at John,  it's so easy to just quirk one side of his mouth and say, "Yeah, my sister and her girlfriend…"._

_It doesn't matter what he says Harry and Clara are doing really, or the fact that Harry would probably punch John for using her as a gambit. What counts is it transforms John into an open-minded, accepting, comforting figure for the boy sitting by his side._

_And sometimes their eyes light up in relief._

_Tonight's lad, Daren, is only 21. He's beautiful and hesitant and shaking when he reaches out to cup John's jaw._

_He kisses like he's desperate for John._

_John's smarter than that, the foolish momentary wishful thinking isn't something he holds on to, but for a moment, it's the most human thing he can do. It's hard to stay human in a world that's built on rifles and bandages. John values life when it happens._

_And bending Daren over his desk in the clinic and fucking him with both their uniforms still on is amazing. He squirms and pushes back into John's thrusts, biting his lip, but still making the most delicious sounds._

_The next time John will see Daren he'd be cold and his eyes would be empty._

_There's no regret, and no shame in comparing the feeling of warm alive, flushed skin to the life-less body before John. There's only life._

"God, Sherlock," John moans into his collarbone, wet lips ghosting hot breath over Sherlock's skin.

It's achingly familiar and entirely new each time.

John's first instinct is always to protect, without remorse and with a steady hand. He's a good shot, but what's extraordinary is his complete and utter devotion to the cause. And the cause is Sherlock.

Possibly for the first time in his life, Sherlock realizes he cares about his partner getting what he needs too.

_Sherlock takes a long, deep drag from the cigarette, his other hand clutched tightly in the girl's hair, and smiles, drives his hips harder. She moans and it's a little distracting and a lot pleasant. Gratifying mainly for the flicker of satisfaction in Victor's eyes. The view must be incredible, the girl on her knees before victor with Sherlock leaning against her from behind, his movements sending her body forward again and again._

_Sherlock thrusts fast and deep, pulling on the girl's hair, her moans turning to pleas. It does little for him but Victor's hand moves faster and his eyelids dip lower._

_"Need help?" Victor asks, breath hitched._

_"Yes," Sherlock smirks and moves to make room for him, accepting the kiss and the hand on his nape._

_Later, breaking the skin with the thin needle as Victor pushes into the girl's body once more, Sherlock stares at that one spot when skin meets metal, and blood, and cocaine._

_And moans._

 

"John," Sherlock sighs beneath him and John pulls back, looks at the flushed face staring up at him.

"We don't have to do it this way," Sherlock says in a rush, and John can't help but run a hand over his collarbone, up his throat.

"What do you mean?" He asks, and his voice is even shakier than Sherlock. "Which way?"

 

_"You killed a man for me," Sherlock says with wonder. They're standing in the doorway of their flat. And isn't it a nice thought, their flat. John is slightly drunk, and his body is still rushing with adrenaline. Sherlock is infuriatingly distant._

_So John steps closer._

_"Yes," he agrees._

_"That's," Sherlock pauses, as if searching for a word and John feels irresistibly attracted to this great big, impossible, arrogant, gorgeous creature before him._

_"Sherlock," he says and presses his face into Sherlock's coat-covered shoulder._

_Sherlock stays silent._

_"I want to fuck you," John whispers into the crook of Sherlock's shoulder._

_Sherlock moves his head to the side and lower, so their eyes can meet._

_"I'd like that," he says quietly._

 

John's body is covering Sherlock's, shielding him, even in this. Letting him break and bite and cry with ecstasy in John's safe embrace.

John is a bottomless well of caring, of wonder, of strong arms and sharp teeth and kind wondrous puffs of air.

And more than anything Sherlock wants to see him being selfish.

But right now he can't help but shiver at the slick feeling of John's cock rubbing against his abdomen. So he stores the thought for later.

 

He studies John all that day; follows him to the shower and blinks away water as John washes his hair, follows him to the kitchen and watches as John makes breakfast. Studies the small glances in Sherlock's direction behind the paper. Listens as John cleans the flat, with his eyes closed.

He has a moment of distraction when John bends down and kisses him, on his way to the laptop, but even that is data.

 

When John comes into the bedroom that night, Sherlock is already sitting on the bed, with the box he took out from the wardrobe lying in front of him.

They never used any of the sex toys Sherlock accomulated through the years. And Sherlock was determined to change that. 

"I'm going to fuck you," he states simply.

John looks baffled, but he sits down instead of turning and walking out. 

"You don't even like," he starts saying cautiously, but Sherlock simply gives a pointed look to the box lying between them.

"What is that?" John asks.

"Dildos, vibrators, clamps," Sherlock can go on with the list but John coughs, blush spreading on his cheeks. 

"What, ah," John wets his lips. "What braught on this?"

"You are not your father," Sherlock begins softly.

"What does my father have anything to do with this?" John challenges him, tone raised just so and shoulders turning tense.

"You're afraid of turning into the kind of man your father was. You treat me, and probably every other past sexual partner, the way you think a man should treat a woman like your mother was."  

It's direct, because Sherlock is still himself, and he's not going to coddle John. And he won't pretend to be something his not. It doesn't mean he wants to hurt John, though, so he goes quiet after that. Letting the meaning behind his words sink. 

John stays quiet for a long time, and if it were anybody else Sherlock would become impatient, but John's reactions are more valuable than other people's. He's motionless, fists clenched on the bed and his breath is shallow, almost inaudible. His gaze unfocused, he looks down at the bed, and Sherlock wants to, to comfort him.

Sherlock reaches out, slowly, and touches John's hand with his fingers. Pads pressing over familiar skin.

"I didn't know," John says, almost inaudibly. "I thought,"

And he bites his lower lip. Sherlock wants to ask John if he'd let Sherlock bite his lower lip for him.

"When I was seven I believed one needed to be married to have sex," he says instead.

John laughs shakily, "There's a difference between realizing you had the wrong idea about sex at seven and at thirty seven."

"Well," Sherlock says flatly. "Not everybody has my genius,"

 And John Laughs, a wonderful chocked sound of freedom, and Sherlock holds on to his hand.

"Do you want to see what I'm going to fuck you with?" he asks, looking pointedly at the box and smiles widely when John laughs louder, giving an undignified snort.  

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm not around much anymore, so I won't be replying to any comments, should you choose to leave one. But thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
